


channel surfing

by daelos



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, some passing mentions of weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 07:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17914853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daelos/pseuds/daelos
Summary: If you’re into discovering new music, need company while studying, or are interested in the personal and romantic failings of our hosts, don’t miss Johnny and Jaehyun’s Night Night radio every Thursday @ 9PM!(“Doyoung, dude, you can’t just post this shit!”)





	channel surfing

**TV GUIDE**

“Who’s that?” asks Jaehyun.

“Who’s who,” replies Chungha in a tone of voice that indicates she’s not too concerned about the answer. Jaehyun looks over to see her struggling to extract her phone from her jacket without upsetting the brimming matcha latte in her other hand and immediately rushes to help.

“Thanks, Jeffrey,” she says, sparkling, and Jaehyun sighs. He regrets letting that particular piece of information slip. “Who were you talking about, again?”

“Uh, across the hall, coming out of the lit mag office.” Jaehyun gestures as best as he can without being too obvious. “Pinkish hair?”

His attempts at being furtive prove useless when she twists all the way around to get a good look. “Oh, I don’t think I’ve seen him before. Maybe he’s new.”

“Must be, since you know everyone around here, right?”

“Why’re you so curious, huh?” Chungha takes a nonchalant sip of her latte, which is still steaming profusely. “He’s cute.”

“Just wondering,” dismisses Jaehyun. “It’s not often you get a new face in the building spring semester.” They’ve reached the end of the hall, now waiting for the elevator. It’s been mildly damaged for as long as Jaehyun has known it to exist, wobbling arthritically between the first and second floor. Everyone’s too used to it to really think about getting it fixed anymore.

“That’s true,” says Chungha, cocking her head. “Consider my interest piqued.”

“Oh no,” says Jaehyun, half-serious, and she elbows him as they step into the elevator. They don’t say much else after that, allowing the faint creaking of the short ride to replace the need for conversation. The opening of the doors prompts him to recalibrate, melting pastel pink hair out of his immediate consciousness.

“You guys are early today!” Johnny’s filling up a paper cup with lukewarm water from their nine thousand-year-old dispenser. “Actually, that’s just what I was hoping for. We’re a tiny bit short-staffed because Taeyong’s got the flu. One of you mind running down to the lit mag office to print our scripts for tonight?”

“I’ll do it,” volunteers Chungha immediately. “Someone hold my drink, I’ll be quick.”

“You’re the best!” Johnny calls after her. He stares at her retreating back so long that the weak stream of water dribbling into his cup swells at the surface and spills down his fingers. “Shit.”

Jaehyun sighs and reaches for the roll of paper towel they’ve taken to keeping beside the dispenser for exactly this reason. It’s a little sad how often this scenario has played out, especially since Chungha’s about as romantically interested in Johnny as she is in laundry detergent, but love is love, or something like that.

Johnny wipes off his hand and the wet spot on the carpet, and then they go on with business as usual, checking equipment and testing their mics. Chungha returns with the scripts and a knowing smile, which means she’s discovered something to share later. Doyoung appears at precisely twenty minutes to air, as always.

“You’re not seriously going to go live wearing that,” he says to Johnny before any kind of greeting.

Johnny scrubs at his collar half-heartedly. “If this is about the ring of Dorito dust, I can explain. It was a rainy Tuesday and I was about to succumb to the urge to open Uber Eats when—”

“Not interested,” Doyoung informs him. “You are very lucky you’re objectively hot.”

“Aw thanks, dude.” Johnny cheerfully ignores the barbed implications of the compliment and wraps an arm around Doyoung’s shoulders. For all his complaining, Doyoung allows the arm to linger a solid eight seconds before he pats Johnny on the shoulder, a request for some air. Johnny and Jaehyun, accordingly, get into place at the round table that sits in the middle of their workspace.

Their radio show started out as audio only, and possibly would have stayed that way forever had Doyoung not thought to capitalize on the Latent Thirst of their listeners by broadcasting an accompanying livestream. He’d even made a PowerPoint presentation with an entire slide dedicated to how their “homoerotic dudebro energy” would attract a greater following. To Jaehyun’s initial chagrin, he was not wrong.

These days, Jaehyun doesn’t mind being folded into Doyoung’s marketing schemes too much, except possibly the way it makes him extra self-conscious about how his hair is looking. They’ve encountered a lot more listener interaction and even got bumped from the 11 PM slot to the 9 PM. Chungha takes the same time slot on Mondays for her own show centered around intersectional feminism, so the arrangement works out for everyone, pretty much.

When they’re two minutes to air, Doyoung issues his standard warning, and they have a breath to straighten their clothes and school their faces pleasant. The show’s intro starts to play right on cue, a slick instrumental created by Taeyong, their sound producer. Jaehyun relaxes back into his chair while Doyoung counts them down. It’d taken a while to settle in, but this co-hosting thing has finally become second nature.

“Hey guys, good evening and welcome back to our show,” begins Johnny beside him. “Tonight we’re gonna kick back and take things a little slower than usual…”

From here onwards, it’s smooth sailing. Jaehyun talks around the framework of his script, segueing into small anecdotes on the side. He’s gotten fairly comfortable with the camera too, enough to remember to look straight into it every now and again. The hour winks and then it’s gone. They wrap up, as usual, by thanking everyone for tuning in, and Jaehyun misses it a tiny bit already.

“So,” he says, sliding his headphones down to his neck and spinning his chair to face Chungha. He doesn’t really need to, seeing as she’s not that far away, but they’ve only recently managed a little budget excess to spend on rolling chairs and he’s determined to milk the hell out of it. “What did you want to tell me?”

“I don’t want to tell you anything,” she sniffs.

“Right, you came here to help set up and stuck around for a full extra hour because you love us so much.” Across the room, Johnny waves goodbye at him, leaving early to finish some online quiz he’d forgotten about. Jaehyun waves back.

“Yes,” says Chungha resolutely, and Jaehyun looks at her, and she looks back at him. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Sicheng.” Her eyes are bright under their fluorescent lighting setup, trying to convey something that goes over Jaehyun’s head.

“Sicheng?”

“Oh my god. Pinkish hair ring any bells?”

“Ah,” says Jaehyun. He’d already kind of forgotten. “New addition to the literary magazine?”

“Actually, no.” Chungha drops into Johnny’s vacant chair and props her chin in her hands. “He has a friend in there, and he only came in to print something. He dances. His hair is more blond than pink up close.”

Jaehyun snorts. “And you know all of this how?”

“He left his keycard inside and had to come back for it.” Her smile curves up to match the pitch of her voice, almost wheedling. “I’m telling you, he really is cute.”

“Good for him,” says Jaehyun lightly, sweeping his and Johnny’s scripts off the table. Half the overhead lights go out as Doyoung starts shutting them down for the night.

“Good for anyone interested in him, too.” Chungha stands up, twisting her hair into a bun and stabbing a stray pen through it. “Night, Jeffrey.”

 

**ABC FAMILY**

Jaehyun’s origin story is fairly simple. According to Johnny, you’re only required to reach Level 10 of knowing him personally before you can unlock it, which Jaehyun deems a fair assessment because he’s got nothing especially juicy to hide.

He moved to the States from Korea when he was five, first to Connecticut, where he acquired an unfortunate English name that he tried his best to shed upon moving to California. It worked until he made the mistake of getting wasted in Chungha’s general vicinity late into his freshman year (she’s got a bloodhound’s nose for this kind of stuff). That this nickname is the crowning jewel of Jaehyun’s embarrassing secrets underscores the distinctly vanilla flavor of his existence thus far.

He did pretty well in high school and is doing pretty well in university, he thinks. There was a stint on the basketball team that ended abruptly when he tore his ACL. It was sort of crushing at the time, mostly because he felt like basketball was the one environment he really thrived in as compared to jack-of-all-tradesing his way through the rest of his life. But his mom just about worried herself gray during and post-op, her _baby,_ her _only son,_ she always _told him_ something like this was going to happen so why not just focus on his studies—and so he avoided rejoining the team to appease her.

However, his friendship with Johnny, now team captain, has outlasted both the knee injury and the bitterness. Johnny was the one who roped him into radio DJing, leading him to bag this co-hosting gig after Seulgi graduated last spring. And it’s fun, and he likes it, and he’s grateful. That’s about all there is to it.

“Making any progress?” asks one of the girls leading the resume-building seminar.

Jaehyun strategically positions his arm over most of the text on the copy he’s brought with him. “Yeah, thank you,” he tells her, smiling earnestly until she nods and disappears.

His lackluster resume is the reason he’s been swimming in his own backstory for half an hour. Jaehyun has done plenty of things and been good at plenty of things, but on paper, it doesn’t read like he’s a confident all-rounder. It reads like he’s confused. He does the best he can with it and stuffs it into his bag the minute the seminar ends. Ten’s offered to provide a late lunch for him and Doyoung today, and if he’s lucky, that means Ten actually buying something instead of emptying out the leftovers in his fridge closest to expiry.

Incredibly, the stars align and provide the latter in the form of fusion tacos. Jaehyun orders the biggest thing they’ve got, stuffed to the bursting with meat, and groans exaggeratedly after the first bite. He’s been allowed side dishes, too. Against all odds, Ten has become Jaehyun’s most treasured friend.

“Good job yesterday,” says Doyoung, clinking the ice cubes in his lemonade. “I didn’t get to tell you. You’ve really warmed up to the camera lately.” Jaehyun’s cheeks are bulging fabulously and he will not subject everyone to a view of their contents by thanking Doyoung, so he gives an enthusiastic nod instead.

“Oh yeah, I was watching the stream. Our Jeffrey’s all grown up,” Ten snickers. As far as Jaehyun is concerned, there’s only one person who can get away with tossing this relic of ancient history around like it’s his given name, and she is not present. Ten’s title of Most Treasured Friend has been rescinded, effective immediately.

“Anyway,” Ten continues, “since I’m disappointed that no one’s asked how I came into possession of spare cash, I’m just gonna tell you. I picked up a teaching job.”

“I would’ve, but I didn’t care,” offers Doyoung. “Okay, let me try. Where did you land this very desirable and highly rewarding opportunity?”

“It’s at this dance studio off west campus—you know, near that bakery Johnny likes? There aren’t a ton of instructors, but the other guy who does contemporary seems chill. I don’t know much about him yet, though.”

“That’s amazing, man, I’m so happy for you,” Jaehyun says, and he genuinely means it. Ten’s playing it off fairly casual right now, but he’s glowing from the inside out, and the smile creeps back into his voice every time he describes the class of kids he’s been assigned to. Ten is dance, embodies it, moves like a rushing stream and a trick of the light. Jaehyun’s glad he’s finding handholds in his passion.

Quietly, he wishes he could find the same for himself, but that’s way too much to ask when he doesn’t even know which direction to start looking.

He engineers a distraction by waging a mostly successful plastic fork war with Doyoung over the last of the kimchi fries, lets the thought roll off instead of seeping into the cracks. Ten relates an anecdote about his pet prodigy, Jisung, with nearly familial pride, and Jaehyun makes all the appropriate noises signifying interest. It’s easier to just listen, sometimes.

When the hour dwindles, Ten and Doyoung head off to afternoon classes while Jaehyun flounders. The lecture he was supposed to attend today has been canceled, but it feels odd to head home so early. He decides to hang out at the library a while, chipping away at the growing mountain of reading in front of him before he gives up and goes on Instagram.

Given the early hour, his feed is mostly dry. Johnny went to practice, Yuta posted some motivational quote from a self-help book, and Kun is, as usual, handsome. It’s a Friday, which means that Chungha is either volunteering at the shelter, working out, or possibly getting ready for a party which she will desert after obtaining relevant gossip and/or blackmail material. She also happens to be double majoring. Godlike time management is 7th on Jaehyun’s running list of her unconfirmed superpowers.

He pauses at a grainy selfie Taeyong has uploaded from the refuge of his bed. It’s black and white and liberally filtered, so he wants to believe it’s just a case of bad contrast or something, but peeking out from underneath the corner of Taeyong’s bed is an unmistakably phallic object.

Jaehyun debates zooming in on the photo, then decides he doesn’t want to bear the burden of certainty. Despite working with Taeyong on a weekly basis, he sure as fuck doesn’t know the guy like that. Let someone else tell him. Better yet, let Yuta see it and play messenger; his weird pining for Taeyong is terrifying in its size and force, and the idea alone is probably enough to keep him nutting on a daily basis until spring break.

And now Jaehyun is too unsettled to keep studying in public, so he packs his stuff and returns to his dorm, where hopefully he can focus on something else besides Taeyong Lee’s lone sexcapades.

“Hey, Seokmin, I’m back,” he says very loudly as he enters his dorm room. His roommate is perched on his bed, texting. In a space so tiny, there’s no need to be loud at all, but he’s hoping it’ll force him to concentrate solely on their conversation.

“Hi,” says Seokmin pleasantly because he’s a pleasant guy. “How was that seminar?”

“Good,” answers Jaehyun, relieved. He tosses his bag on the ground and collapses onto his own bed. “Most of the people there were cool, but a handful were crazy high-strung and kept holding up everybody else. From the business school, obviously. You know how it is.”

Seokmin frowns in sympathy. “Yeah, they can be pretty anal.”

Jaehyun winces. “Or, like, fussy. Controlling. Those are effective synonyms.”

“Sure,” agrees Seokmin amicably.

“What’d you do today?”

“Oh, I went in for my first training day at the restaurant I applied to a while back. Josh used to work there, so he recommended me.”

“Nice,” says Jaehyun, feeling the tension start to leak from his shoulders. Talking to Seokmin usually has this effect. “How’d that go?”

“Mostly well, but I was a little clumsy with the soft drinks.” Seokmin sighs. “They have this huge ice chest, right? And it makes everything super wet and slippery. The condensation makes the cans hard to grip, and when I accidentally dropped one, it spilled everywhere. The floor got so sticky, and my manager just _gaped_ at me—”

“You know, I just remembered I’ve got Stats homework,” cuts in Jaehyun, unable to bear any more. “So sorry to interrupt, dude, that sucks, it’s just that this is due tonight.”

“No, don’t worry, I totally get it. You do what you need to do.” Seokmin returns to texting, and Jaehyun grimly opens his laptop to do next month’s Stats assignment. At least data sets are free of innuendo.

A moment later, his phone pings with a text from the broadcasting group chat.

 _i think we’ve all had the same realization,_ says Doyoung. _someone better tell him before i do because i’m gonna hurt his feelings_

 _not it,_ says Chungha in the space of ten seconds, rapidly followed by a matching _not it_ from Joy, the tech for her show. Foreboding sinks into Jaehyun’s bones as he scrambles to open his messages and add his response to the growing list. He’s about to hit send when—

 _not it,_ adds Johnny.

 _guys what are we even talking about,_ sends Taeyong.

Jaehyun blinks once, then twice, then locks his phone and slowly resumes the homework that’s not due for another three weeks. He got on board with DJing to broaden his skillset and build camaraderie, or whatever. He did not sign up for this.

A bed over, Seokmin makes a startled sort of noise. “Jaehyun, you follow Taeyong on Insta, right?”

 _guys? im so confused,_ reads his phone.

“Nope,” says Jaehyun. “I don’t know who that is.”

 

**DISNEY CHANNEL**

A week later, the incriminating post has long been vacuumed off Taeyong’s Instagram account. There is no lingering awkwardness because Jaehyun had been forced to swallow all his discomfort and converse at length with said acquaintance about his preferred methods of meat beating. He’s heard everything he never wanted to hear. He is a rock. He is the embodiment of openness.

He is looking up from the ground a split second too late to avoid collision with an innocent passerby, and he feels terrible. While Jaehyun’s managed to catch himself by staggering forward, the poor other guy has been knocked clean onto his ass. He bends over to offer a hand. “I’m sorry, that was totally my bad. You okay?”

The guy lifts his head, which is pinkish blond, and Jaehyun’s stomach flips immediately. He probably shouldn’t have accepted that giant boba from Joy earlier, but she was in such a good mood and even added lychee jelly. Who was he to say no?

Now, though, as Sicheng (who is Not From Lit Mag but seems to hang around here an awful lot) blinks delicately curved eyes at him from underneath his bangs, Jaehyun feels it churning uncomfortably. It doesn’t help that Sicheng isn’t accepting his hand.

“I’m fine,” says Sicheng eventually, getting to his knees and then his feet by himself. He moves easy and limber, catlike. “You’re from upstairs, right?”

Jaehyun slides his spurned hand into his pocket. “Yeah, we do a nighttime show.”

“Every week?” asks Sicheng.

“Every week,” affirms Jaehyun. “Thursdays at 9 on the dot.”

“Nice.” Sicheng’s hair looks artfully tousled even after he’s been mistakenly plowed into the tile floor. “See you around, I guess.”

He presents Jaehyun with something that could be interpreted as a smile from the right angle, or maybe with precisely the right lens, and then he’s gone. Jaehyun takes a second to steady himself even though he’s not the one who’d fallen over.

What’s mildly frustrating is that after this event, Jaehyun is left to stew in two realizations: first, he’s ultimately and inexplicably more embarrassed by Sicheng-not-from-lit-mag ignoring his attempt to help than by learning about Taeyong’s preference in sex toys. Second, you’d think Sicheng emerged from some magical storybook just seconds prior to being knocked down what with the way he continues to flutter, dreamlike, around Jaehyun’s mind.

On his way to class the next morning, Jaehyun contemplates what kind of dance Sicheng might be involved in. Later, he closes his textbook with a sense of finality and decides that Chungha was right, his hair really is more blond than pink up close. And then, as luck would have it, he sees Sicheng again the following week when he’s heading in to prep for the show.

He waves a little. “Hey!”

Sicheng glances up from his phone, wearing a finely tuned blend of bemusement and interest across his face. “Oh, hey. Upstairs guy.”

“Jaehyun,” he supplies.

“Right. Hey, Jaehyun.”

He goes back to typing on his phone and Jaehyun watches him, expectant. Chungha had unearthed his name over a week ago, but it’s not like Jaehyun can toss it out without the introduction going both ways and look like some kind of stalker. “What’s your name?” he prompts finally.

A pause, like he’s surprised Jaehyun’s still talking. “It’s Sicheng. I guess we really are going to keep seeing each other around?”

“Seems that way,” says Jaehyun, and he can’t help but grin. “Have a good night.”

He walks into the broadcasting office with an extra spring in his step, which earns him an approving look from Johnny and a contemplative one from Doyoung, on which he chooses not to dwell. Taeyong, fiddling with last-minute adjustments for a new Soundcloud track, remains wonderfully oblivious.

The show goes well in spite of Jaehyun being a little distracted by his earlier run-in. The odds of spotting Sicheng downstairs three times in a row are just so slim, and any moment he’s not speaking, he drifts back to mulling it over. Sicheng doesn’t have any real affiliation with this building or its inhabitants, so his continued presence is kind of baffling. The fact that it’s already well into the night only doubles his mystique. Granted, the body of the campus literary magazine is eccentric by anyone’s standards, but that doesn’t explain what Sicheng is doing there in the first place. Isn’t he a dancer? Doesn’t he ever have practice in the mornings? Is he just really into obscure poetry as a hobby?

“That’s a lot of questions, bro,” says Joshua, puttering around his kitchenette while Jaehyun inspects the cherry flavored rolling papers on the table. “You’re pretty curious about this guy.”

His tone, though neither accusing nor suspicious, still makes Jaehyun squirm a bit. It’s not like trying to learn more about someone is a crime. Maybe the avenue he’s chosen to take is questionable, but there are few who know as much about everyone’s business as Joshua Hong does. Unlike Jeonghan, who sort of verbally muscles his way into obtaining juice, or Chungha, who plants herself in the center of campus happenings so as to never miss a thing, Joshua contents himself with peaceful weed distribution. He’s also not the type to make Jaehyun’s budding interest in Sicheng common knowledge, which the former two would circulate in a millisecond.

“He seems cool,” Jaehyun replies, tuning slowly back into the present.

Joshua sets down a plate between them and takes a seat. “He is. Brownie?”

“Oh, thanks,” says Jaehyun, reaching for one before a thought occurs to him. “Wait, are these—”

“Not pot brownies.” Joshua laughs. “Seokmin brought them over because I got him that server job, not that he needed my recommendation. Anyone would hire him.”

Jaehyun nods his agreement and bites into a corner piece. It’s perfect, the ideal ratio of crunchy sides to fudgy center. “These are incredible.”

“Right?” Joshua picks one from the tray for himself. “Anyway, you were asking about Sicheng, yeah? Let’s see…”

Another great quality of Josh Hong’s is his unfailing knack for guiding the conversation back to where you want it to go. He doesn’t even have to ask; he just knows. Talking to him is a breath of fresh air for Jaehyun, who by nature can’t escape from worrying constantly about how he comes across.

“Sicheng Dong. Freshman. Applied math. He won this nationwide Chinese classical dance competition during his last year of high school, where he graduated as val. I only know that because my cousin went there, too.” Joshua counts off the facts on one hand while holding his brownie with the other. “Met him the time I sold to Minghao—oh! Minghao’s photos get published in lit mag. There’s your connection.”

Jaehyun leans back in his chair. His head is spinning and he’s fairly sure it’s not the lingering smell of pot in Joshua’s apartment, although that could admittedly be a contributor. Sicheng’s studying applied mathematics, is a nationally recognized talent, and he’s younger than Jaehyun to boot.

“You look stressed,” observes Joshua. “No charge for a friend who’s going through it, you know.” He motions to the rolling papers with a flourish.

“Nah, I’m good today. I’ll take another brownie, though.”

Joshua grins and pushes the plate closer to Jaehyun’s side of the table. “Be my guest, man. I guess our favorite radio DJ needs to be totally in the zone when he’s live.”

For a solid minute, Jaehyun thinks back to the many occasions on which he and Johnny both showed up to the broadcasting office stoned out of their minds and did entire programs where they lapsed into giggles every five minutes. One time, they were so spaced out that Chungha marched in and commandeered the program as a “special guest” to keep them afloat, except she had no material, so she had to solicit requests through the show’s Twitter account and ended up receiving only a slew of Drag Race memes from Ten.

“That’s definitely it,” Jaehyun agrees. “We’re all about the focus.”

Moving forward, he doesn’t really know how to take the news of Sicheng’s apparent heaps of talent for everything, ever. Awestruck, for sure, and caught off guard. Admiring. Here he is, trying to find something respectable and ordinary that’ll stick, while Sicheng Dong is out there somewhere reinventing the laws of physics and doing the splits at the same time.

He pulls out his abandoned resume out from between the pages of an old radio script one night, sighing at it like that alone is going to rearrange the text into something more cohesive. Jaehyun’s future aspirations begin and end with making his parents proud and earning a decent salary to live by, which the crinkled paper he’s staring down makes abundantly clear. Basketball was the first and only thing that had stirred him from a place beyond just enjoying that he was good at it. Still, it’s not like he ever had a real shot at getting drafted; he wasn’t that kind of talent. It’s not sustainable, either. In fact, the more he thinks back on it, he thinks that the aspect of the sport he liked best was that he got to be constantly surrounded by a team.

Jaehyun’s first class tomorrow doesn’t start until after noon, meaning that he can afford to stay awake longer, but there’s not much point. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to absorb any academic text at the moment, for one. He’s only going to feel worse if he keeps sitting on these thoughts, for another. Resignedly, he switches off the lamp and burrows deep into the blankets layered across his narrow bed. He dreams about nothing.

At about six in the morning, Jaehyun wakes with a start from the sensation of falling through his mattress, skin still prickling with the frustration of the night before, and decides he’s had enough. After finding a thin jacket on the floor and deeming it suitable, he heads outside for a morning run. This is a path he knows well, having followed it countless times whenever he needs to get outside of his head. It winds around their dorm and the neighboring one, then loops south to nearly encircle the astronomy building before petering to a stop near the intramural fields. There’s no one around so early in the day, with most people who care to get a workout in choosing to hit the gym instead. No one, except.

Jaehyun squints to make sure, but the hair color is unmistakable. That’s Sicheng holding a textbook lunge in the grass, legs angled precisely enough to have been measured by a protractor. He debates calling out for a good few seconds before Sicheng straightens, having noticed his spectator, and makes the choice for him.

“Jaehyun?”

“That’s me,” says Jaehyun, jogging over to close the distance. “You always such an early riser?”

Sicheng shrugs. “It’s a habit. I feel all stiff if I don’t stretch every morning, and this is just the quietest place to do it.”

Jaehyun nods in understanding. “Healthy lifestyle. I should start writing down your tips.”

“Considering that you’re already up and running, I’d say you’re doing just fine.”

The drowsy sun emerges from behind a puff of clouds, flaring light behind Sicheng’s head. It draws a shimmering outline of his hair, shoulders, ears—which are shaped differently, Jaehyun now realizes. The right one’s pointed at the tip like a fairy’s. Come to think of it, everything about Sicheng is a little ethereal, so it seems only fitting.

“I’d like to think so,” Jaehyun tells him, then is rewarded with a half-smile, the second one he’s received from Sicheng so far. They’re rare enough that he feels like he has to measure them out, keeping inventory.

For a moment, it’s just the two of them and the soft inception of the morning.

“Hey, I should probably go,” says Sicheng, breaking the spell. “Promised to meet a friend for breakfast.”

“Sure, have fun.” Jaehyun’s still a little dazed when he waves him off. It’s been at least a year since he’s had the energy to make plans so early, but it seems like Sicheng’s determination is boundless.

By himself now, Jaehyun comes to the realization that he’s both sweaty and cold at the same time, a breeze gusting through the unzipped front of his jacket. There’s nothing in particular he’s got to do until class starts, making the few hours he’s secured seem fizzy and boundless. He eyes the long rectangle of blacktop just across the field. It’s not a court, per se, but there are two posts with functional hoops… and he doesn’t have a ball. Jaehyun sighs, unwilling to make the trek to the varsity gym.

He’ll settle for getting his adrenaline rush by sprinting all the way back to his dorm, hair streaming in the wind, full-on Troy Bolton. As thoroughly dumb as it sounds, it always makes him feel better to imagine himself as the hero of the musical franchise, torn between two passions and resolving everything in song. The dilemma of having too many directions to choose from sounds a lot cooler than having none.

He’s never really bothered with envisioning a Gabriella to stand opposite him, though, since it was just a pointless fantasy with some sentimental anchor to his childhood. And besides, no one he knows is so prodigiously gifted at math either. Except, he supposes, Sicheng.

As Jaehyun begins to retrace his path, the sun wakes up in tandem, emerging fully at center stage in the sky to cast a bit of extra warmth on his face. The thought of Sicheng doing lunges in the middle of academic decathlon, clad in chunky goggles and a lab coat, has him smiling to himself the whole way back.

 

**LIFETIME**

“What do you think of deleting this section? It reads a little awkward to me.” Jaehyun taps the end of his pen against his lip.

“Does it really matter?” says Chungha. “You and Johnny don’t rely much on the script anymore. You guys’ll figure it out.”

Jaehyun sets his pen down, appeased. “You’re right.”

“As always.” She quirks the corner of her lip at him and finishes formulating a comment for a class discussion board. The cafe buzzes quietly around them, keyboard clicks and overlapping chatter marking its peak afternoon hour.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, waving her off. “Pretty lipstick color, by the way. It complements your eye makeup.”

“Doesn’t it?” Chungha hits submit and lowers the lid of her laptop, pleased. “And look, it’s basically smudge-proof.” She scrubs the back of her hand over her mouth and shows it to him proudly.

Jaehyun peers at first her hand, then the outline of her lipstick. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“You wanna try?” She’s already bent over, fishing in her bag. “I always carry my lip color with me in case I need to touch up. Oh, actually, I have the gloss that goes with it! You’d look cute in peach.”

“Um,” says Jaehyun, feeling like he’s getting significantly more than he bargained for. “Sure, I guess.”

“Great.” The shiny applicator in Chungha’s hand comes perilously close to stabbing out his eye before it reroutes and approaches his lips. Surprisingly, the gloss she swipes on isn’t uncomfortable, more slippery than it is sticky. “Now we can twin,” she announces.

Jaehyun examines his reflection in the compact she holds out. Despite being far from an expert in these waters, he does agree that it suits him. Another win for Chungha on the never-ending scoreboard.

With a rattle of her straw, she drains what’s left of her iced latte and pushes the emptied cup across the table. “Hey, did you ever get back to Ten?”

“About what?”

Chungha squints. “Wasn’t he harping on you nonstop about never coming to visit him at work? Today’s probably the best day since you’re on tomorrow night.”

“And midterms are next week,” finishes Jaehyun slowly, an air of dread about him. It’s true, Ten has been texting almost daily and asking for visitors. He’s clearly proud of the progress he’s made with his students and wants to show them off, which Jaehyun fully supports—it just slipped his mind. “Do you know if he’s teaching today?”

“Should be. I think he mentioned that his second group comes in at five.”

“Okay, cool, I’ve got time. You want to come with?”

“I actually gotta go,” Chungha answers with an apologetic frown. “I still have class today. Tell him I’ll drop by before the week ends, though.”

And so Jaehyun finds himself at a neat little box of a dance studio just under an hour later, having marginally overestimated his travel time and earned a spare few minutes. The sleepy-eyed girl at the front helpfully informs him that Ten is inside assisting a student, but he’ll get started soon, and can she interest him in a pamphlet detailing their lesson times?

“We have another instructor in as well,” she offers, “although he only does an advanced class today, which already wrapped up.” A vague gesture towards the hallway. “Second door on the right if he hasn’t left yet.”

Jaehyun feels sort of bad for wasting her time, so he thanks her and rounds the corner. The door to the second practice room is ajar and swings open accommodatingly at a gentle push. The person inside, stooped over arranging his things inside a duffel bag, looks up at the noise and snorts.

“Are you stalking me or something?”

“I swear I’m not,” defends Jaehyun. “My friend Ten teaches here, too, and I came to see him.”

Sicheng plunks his bag on one of several chairs pushed against the back wall before pivoting to face Jaehyun fully. “Relax, I know. He’s mentioned you.”

 _He’s never mentioned_ you, _though,_ thinks Jaehyun a little plaintively. Instead of voicing it aloud, he slips inside to drink in the layout of the room. “I see that all your stretching is going to good use.”

“Oh, this is more like a byproduct. My specialty is Chinese traditional, but this isn’t really the place.”

“That’s a shame,” says Jaehyun sympathetically, as if he’s learning this fact about Sicheng for the very first time.

“Yeah.” Sicheng studies him for a moment, considering. “Have you ever danced before?”

Only while inebriated and/or at parties, but Jaehyun has a feeling that this isn’t the answer Sicheng is looking for. He settles for shaking his head.

“Well, do you want to try?”

Startled, Jaehyun glances up. There’s a curve of mirth to Sicheng’s mouth, weight shifted onto one hip, arms crossed. He looks like he wants Jaehyun to say yes. For some inexplicable reason, Jaehyun pushes aside the inevitability of being embarrassed and does.

Sicheng draws closer, appraising his posture and build. “Loosen up a little,” he says, tapping once between Jaehyun’s shoulder blades. “You have to stop carrying that tension bunched up in your shoulders.” Jaehyun tries uselessly to drop them, to slouch, even, but the stiffness is practically ingrained at this point. His pulse skitters when Sicheng places a hand on each shoulder and pushes down, gentle and sure. “Like that,” he instructs.

“Okay,” says Jaehyun, breathing deep and slow. “What’s next?”

Sicheng puts a few steps between them, directing him to reference the mirrored wall up front. “You start here, like this… and then bend your knee, no, the other one… right, left, right.” He leads them through the steps again and again, slow and patient. It’s an uncomplicated eight-count and a quarter of the original speed besides, but replicating the moves takes all of Jaehyun’s concentration. It doesn’t help that Sicheng moves like the edges of his body are melting into the very atmosphere.

When they’ve run through it enough times to make Jaehyun dizzy, Sicheng pauses. “You think you can do it yourself now?”

Frankly, Jaehyun doesn’t think so at all, but the window of time Sicheng’s taken out of his day to teach him make him want to give it a shot. He works through the sequence to the best of his ability and chances a look at Sicheng at the end. His ears steadily begin to heat up, delayed embarrassment kicking in.

Amazingly, Sicheng looks mildly impressed.

“For someone who’s never danced before, that wasn’t bad at all,” he says decisively. “You’re still way too tense, but you have decent form. And muscle memory.”

Jaehyun’s cheeks heat up to match his ears. “You’re sugarcoating it, but thanks.”

Two hands land again on Jaehyun’s shoulders, adjusting the slope, and one travels partway down his arm to angle it nearer to his chest. “This is where you should’ve ended,” Sicheng tells him without letting go. Suddenly, his quiet voice is the gravitational center of the room. “And I don’t sugarcoat anything.”

He’s so close that Jaehyun can single out the patches of his hair that still cling to the remnants of pinkish dye, the rest rapidly fading. “Nice lip gloss,” Sicheng adds wryly, stepping back.

Jaehyun experiences an intensely cinematic flashback to Chungha painting a layer of peachy gloss across his mouth and contemplates dying then and there. Except Sicheng’s face is soft and he seems like he really meant it, in which case the gloss is just fine, thanks.

Then, the door yelps as someone shoves it open with gleeful force, immediately inciting Jaehyun to send a quick prayer of thanks up to heaven for the distance between Sicheng and himself.

“I heard that my much-requested visitor decided to show up,” says Ten. He appears in front of them grinning broadly, forehead shiny and hair mussed. A little boy carefully closes the door to the practice room across the hall and waves shyly at Ten as he passes by, and Ten withdraws a hand from the pocket of his joggers to wave enthusiastically back.

“Yeah, well, I figured it was about time,” says Jaehyun. “Do I get to sit in on your class or are you going to make me watch through the window?”

Ten clicks his tongue disapprovingly. “No, I’m gonna make sure you see everything up close and personal. This is my blood, sweat, and tears we’re talking about.” His gaze meanders over to somewhere behind Jaehyun. “Hey, Sicheng. Still haven’t left?”

“I was actually just about to go,” answers Sicheng, hefting his bag off the chair. He makes his way to the door, turning at the last second to address them over his shoulder. “See you guys later.”

Ten’s brow wrinkles. “Since when do you two know each other?”

“It’s only been a couple weeks.” Jaehyun shrugs as he follows Ten out of this practice room and into the one opposite, now empty. While they cross the hall, he gets a brief, slanted view of the reception area, where the little boy who’d waved to Ten is now waiting for his parents to pick him up. Sicheng’s partially obscured form is crouched on the ground, giving the kid a high five. Jaehyun tears his eyes away just soon enough to dodge the corner of the doorway on his way in.

Ten accepts the explanation at face value, possibly too enthusiastic to probe further. “Welcome to where the magic happens,” he declares, flinging both arms outwards. This room looks exactly like the other one, all mint green walls and polished mirror, but it’s clearly special to Ten.

“I’m excited,” says Jaehyun honestly because Ten’s energy is infectious.

“You better be,” Ten tells him matter-of-factly. “Jisung learned how to do a backflip last week, and it’s pretty fucking sick.”

 

**ANIMAL PLANET**

Fundamentally, Jaehyun is a Nice and Good person, which is not an issue in itself. He’s well-liked and tries his best to keep it this way. He seldom, if ever, turns anyone down when they come to him in need—and herein lies the problem.

He should’ve ejected himself from this situation the minute Seokmin walked into their room with a wriggling lump in the front of his jacket. But now they're here, watching a tiny puppy chase its tail in circles on Jaehyun’s freshly laundered sheets, and it feels wrong to walk out. It’s also totally not fair of Seokmin to have chosen a dog this cute because every time it stops and pants with its tongue out, Jaehyun feels like he’s being emotionally manipulated, and he is making increasing peace with the fact.

“He’s not mine,” says Seokmin guiltily.

“Right,” says Jaehyun. “So.”

Seokmin cracks without any additional pressure. “Okay, so I was at Joshua’s place, right?”

“Josh Hong doesn’t have a dog,” Jaehyun says.

“That’s true, but he has a friend named Jihoon who does, and Jihoon’s out of town for some conference thing this week. And so Josh got the dog. But it’s a busy week for him since midterms just ended and he’s really concerned about the dog eating some pot on accident, which I told him wouldn’t happen because he’s responsible.” Seokmin pauses to take a breath. “But he kept asking if I could watch him just for the afternoon while he cleans up and runs errands and stuff, and Evan kept looking at me like _that,_ so here we are.”

“Hold on, who’s Evan?”

“The puppy. That’s his name.” Seokmin has the decency to look embarrassed when he continues, “It’s short for Neon Genesis Evangelion.”

“Oh my God,” says Jaehyun, feeling like he’s entered some kind of fever dream. Evan gnaws on the seam of his pillowcase, unbothered.

“I don’t know what to do,” Seokmin confesses. “It doesn’t feel right to keep him cooped up in here all day. Maybe we could take him to the park?”

Jaehyun stares.

“It’s very good for people as well. Cardiac health is important.” Seokmin doesn’t seem to understand the root of Jaehyun’s disbelief. “No, I swear, consistent running is how I got my breath control this good. The choir director agrees.”

“Okay,” says Jaehyun slowly, watching Evan scrabble for purchase on the folds of his blanket and tip over briefly. He really is cute, all wavy golden fur and long, floppy ears. He’s also gonna have to pee at some point and Jaehyun would rather not it be in here. “Let’s take him to the park.”

Smuggling the puppy back out is initially easier than expected. Seokmin just kinda scoops him up and tucks him back in the jacket, leaving the top partially unzipped to provide air, and nobody stops to talk to them. Jaehyun’s starting to release the breath he’s been holding in since they left their dorm when things go south.

As they’re passing the student center, they accidentally find themselves ensnared within a massive tour group of high school students. Even worse, it’s Johnny leading the tour. “Hey, Jaehyun!” he shouts, waving with his entire torso. “Dude, come on up here. I was just telling these guys about the way I started out DJing.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Jaehyun turns beseeching eyes on Seokmin. “There are a ton of people around, but we made eye contact. I can’t ignore him!”

“Then don’t,” suggests Seokmin reasonably. He shifts around the notebook he’s carrying over his abdomen like a puppy shield, not that it does much to disguise the swell of his chest and belly. “I can handle Evan for two minutes.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” Jaehyun hesitantly makes his way to the front of the group and accepts Johnny’s friendly punch on the shoulder. “Uh, hey guys. Having fun?”

“I am now,” says one girl candidly, drawing a few chuckles. Jaehyun grins at her, trying consciously to dial up the charm while he keeps a furtive eye on Seokmin in the back. He’s more than happy to answer any questions about the college experience he’s had so far, but this is not the ideal time. Also, Johnny has the unfortunate sometimes-habit of waxing poetic, eventually launching into stories that are entirely confusing out of context. It’s usually a safer bet for him to stick to the one-liners he rehearses in the mirror beforehand.

After Johnny explains how their broadcasting setup works for a minute, an exceptionally tall guy raises a hand. “I have a question,” he calls, voice booming. “What’s marching band like around here?”

“Bro, you’re so loud,” snickers his smaller friend, tucked into his side, who startles when the group’s attention lands on him. “Oh, uh, Lucas is asking because it’s really big at our school. He’s tuba and I’m flute.”

“That’s an awesome question,” says Johnny cheerily. “Mark, was it? Cool. So I’m not an expert, but this is what I know…”

Seokmin catches Jaehyun’s eye, mouthing _help_ as he rocks the lump in his jacket nervously. A fluffy ear flashes momentarily from his open zip, then disappears, indicating that Evan is getting antsy.

“Hey, it was great to meet you all, but I’ve gotta run,” says Jaehyun, quietly so as not to talk over Johnny. He flashes the tour group a double thumbs up and makes a break for the back, skirting around the mass of people to get there quicker. He does not make it in time.

There is a scuffle and a yelp, and then Seokmin’s jacket is flapping in the breeze while a golden blur speeds away, kicking up a trail of dust. Jaehyun is frozen motionless for a moment, gripped by disappointment that his worst-case scenario has come true so soon. A second later, he’s running as fast as he possibly can. The tour group’s chatter rises excitedly in volume as students start to take notice of what’s going on, but it disappears into the background as Jaehyun picks up speed.

“Go further left,” he hollers at Seokmin. “I’ll go right, and we’ll cut him off in the middle!”

They dodge people walking alone, groups of friends, the wide base of the bell tower. Despite considering himself pretty athletic, Jaehyun doesn’t think he’s been physically capable of running this fast ever before; it’s the panic that really gets his legs pumping. Evan is tiny, practically a baby, and he’s not even their damn dog, but the idea of losing him on this massive campus strikes cold fear into the center of Jaehyun’s heart.

The puppy’s racing figure flickers out of sight when they sharply round a cluster of trees. Jaehyun collapses to his knees in the dirt, chest burning. “You see him?”

“No,” replies Seokmin anxiously. “I think he turned back around but I can’t be sure.” Although he’s just run the same distance and almost the same speed, Seokmin’s voice is perfectly even, if fraught with worry, and Jaehyun can’t help but be wowed. He really wasn’t kidding about the strength of his lungs.

They head back in the direction of the tour group, desperately asking each and every person they pass if they’ve seen a puppy. “Yea high and about this wide,” adds Seokmin, gesturing to provide visual cues. “Irresistibly cute. Alluring eyes?”

When Jaehyun’s just about ready to break, there’s a tap on his shoulder. It’s the flutist band kid, having wandered apart from the tour group. “I think I saw your dog in front of the student center,” he informs them. “At least, Johnny said that’s what the building is called.”

Jaehyun and Seokmin toss out twin expressions of thanks before racing back to the student center, but the area in front of it is bare except for some browning leaves and a few grungy wrappers. The whole thing seems fruitless until a series of tentative footsteps echo behind them, and an increasingly familiar voice goes, “Jaehyun?”

Sicheng appears from around the corner of the building, standing on the blocky stairs with a cocker spaniel puppy nestled serenely in the crook of his elbow. “There was an entire tour group across the quad that told me someone lost a dog over here. I didn’t know it was yours.”

He looks confused, and he also looks like Jaehyun’s personal savior, the solution to the massive test of will he’s endured over the course of the past fifteen minutes. Instead of a normal response, Jaehyun’s overextended mind produces this: “Oh, he’s not. Mine, I mean. He belongs to a friend of a friend of a friend, so we’re like third cousins.”

Sicheng blinks several times, taken aback. Before Jaehyun can blame his incoherency on the lack of oxygen currently going to his brain, Sicheng tips his chin back and laughs, open and bright. With Evan still curled up in his arms, he appears more like a painting than a person, possibly saintly.

“Thank you so much for finding our cousin,” intervenes Seokmin helpfully, reaching out to take the puppy. He holds Evan’s tiny, wiggling body in the air like the iconic scene from The Lion King, frowning sternly. “Neon Genesis Evangelion, don’t you _ever_ scare me like that again.”

Jaehyun’s too frazzled at this point to even feel proper embarrassment at the use of Evan’s full name. He just shoots a grin at Sicheng, grateful and dopey, and revels in the fact that he now receives one back.

 

**FOOD NETWORK**

“Night, guys,” calls Johnny, stacking their used scripts for recycling. “See you next week.”

Taeyong and Doyoung chorus _good night_ back, grabbing their respective belongings from where they’d been unceremoniously dumped on the table. Jaehyun’s the last one to leave today, which happens more and more often lately. It gives him a sense of peace to be alone, reflecting for an extra few minutes before he heads out.

Downstairs, he’s no longer surprised to see a lithe figure draped across the closed door to the lit mag office. “Hey, stranger,” he says easily.

Sicheng removes one earbud, looks up, smiles. “Hey. I liked the way you guys told the puppy story tonight.”

“You listen to our show?”

“I figured I should check it out since, you know, I’m here all the time.” Sicheng waves his phone lazily, displaying the black screen of their recently ended stream.

“Yeah,” says Jaehyun, propping a shoulder against the wall to lean comfortably. “Why is that, anyway?”

Sicheng’s eyes flick away from his for a moment. “Um, the magazine wanted to run a piece on my dancing and publish it externally, too. With an interview and stuff. I’ve been coming down to work with them.”

“That’s huge,” Jaehyun tells him, wholly earnest. “You should link me when it’s out.” Sicheng cocks his head wordlessly and Jaehyun flounders for a second, thinking that he may have overstepped. Maybe they don’t know each other like that just yet?

“You’d have to give me your number for that,” answers Sicheng, offering his phone and alleviating this sudden bout of nerves in one fell swoop. Jaehyun keys it in, then waits for a bubble to pop up so he can save Sicheng’s in return. Feels warm, and a little brave, too.

“Are you doing anything after this, by the way? I know it’s a little late, but we could go grab something to eat if you’re down.”

Sicheng pockets his phone and straightens. “Yeah, food sounds great.”

“Cool,” says Jaehyun, relieved. “I’ve been meaning to thank you properly for saving Evan the other day, so it works out.”

“I didn’t do any saving,” argues Sicheng as they step outside. “He just came up to me with those huge eyes, so I picked him up.”

“Okay, but you were seriously our hero, though.”

The sky has settled somewhere between black and gray, almost dusty with cottony, thin clouds. Sicheng’s face is a topographic map, all dramatic shadows tempered by a low, steady voice. Jaehyun takes them to a diner-style place and observes that Sicheng looks regal no matter what kind of lighting he’s under.

The pancake stack that arrives at their table is so intimidatingly tall that Sicheng has to pawn half of it off on Jaehyun in order to finish. There’s a brief squabble about the syrup and butter (Jaehyun wants more, Sicheng less, but everything tastes good when it’s late and you’re hungry) followed by the contented clanging of silverware as they work through the rest of their food.

It’s comfortable, Jaehyun realizes. They talk aimlessly about how their weeks have gone and laugh again retelling the tale of the escaped puppy. They’re quiet for intervals, too, and it still feels so effortless. Sicheng makes an offhand comment about how he was sort of craving sushi but everything’s either closed, distant, or way too expensive. Before Jaehyun registers the meaning of the words exiting his mouth, he’s already proposing that they get lunch together next time.

“Next time?” repeats Sicheng.

“If you want,” Jaehyun says.

As it turns out, Sicheng does want. On Monday, they meet up for the promised sushi, and a few days afterwards, Jaehyun wraps up the weekly broadcast to find Sicheng waiting up for him again. This time, Doyoung happens to be locking up late and sees the two of them leave together, which he refrains from asking about at the time, but he sends Jaehyun a string of texts comprising only question marks later.

Jaehyun decides to hold off on replying in order to enjoy his time with Sicheng (they end up sharing a gigantic mound of oversalted fries, and it’s fantastic), but crashes as soon as he gets home. This is a rookie mistake.

“Jaehyun Jung is gallivanting around with the guy who lurks on the ground floor of the broadcasting building every week,” announces Doyoung, stabbing cleanly through the lid of his boba. “He also seems to want to hide it.”

“I’m not _gallivanting_ with anyone,” says Jaehyun, affronted, but it’s too late. Chungha has already heard from the table she’s claimed for them, and she pounces the minute Jaehyun sets down her drink.

“I knew it,” she nearly shouts, slapping one ringed hand down on the tabletop. “I totally knew Sicheng was your type from the minute I saw him. My intuition is never wrong.”

“Wait, the guy is Sicheng Dong?” Doyoung chokes on a mouthful of pearls. “The dancer who got all that local press coverage last semester for his performance at the international festival?”

“I guess,” says Jaehyun. He hadn’t known that, actually, but it sounds about right.

Doyoung coughs to clear his throat, both eyebrows steadily migrating up his forehead. “So you have a boner for a freshman. That’s kind of gross.”

Jaehyun’s jaw drops. “We’re literally the same age!”

“The very thought just makes my stomach turn,” continues Doyoung as if he hadn’t heard a thing.

“No, he’s adorable, though,” Chungha insists, swirling her straw. “Jeffrey would be stupid not to jump on the chance that’s waiting right in front of him.”

“What do you mean waiting?” Jaehyun frowns.

“I really do have to explain everything,” she sighs. “Sicheng is talented and pretty and obviously into you. He doesn’t talk to anyone else from upstairs, if you’ve noticed. And no matter what he’s doing at lit mag, I’m sure they have more reasonable work hours than 9 at night on Thursdays. He probably just wants to see you.”

Jaehyun reels. He thinks back to the first time they ever actually spoke, how Sicheng stared at him and didn’t accept his offered hand. That encounter didn’t seem to indicate any particular interest, but he can’t deny that their dynamic has started to bend a different way. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “We’ve only just become friends.”

Doyoung regards him for a long minute. “Well, if he likes you as much as Chungha seems to think he does, you should think about it a little more carefully.”

He says it as casually as if he’s discussing the weather, but it hits home in a subtle kind of way. The thing is, Doyoung is someone who’s always known what he wanted and held firm to those convictions almost his entire life. Chungha is less fiery in her ambition, but just as assured in her process; she’s one of the most efficient people Jaehyun has ever met. When he hears “think about it carefully,” he understands it to mean “decide what you want,” and that’s always been his real issue.

He’s here straddling the midway line, perfect in a sense, perfectly average in another. All the immensely talented people in his life making strides that he can’t replicate aren’t necessarily better than him, they’re just more dedicated. They have themselves figured out.

Jaehyun tries not to dwell on it too much when he and Sicheng see each other next. This time, they’re at the bakery tucked into the plaza that also houses the dance studio, studying different varieties of sweet bread. “What about this?” he suggests, pointing at a fluffy taro roll.

Sicheng hums a yes. “Get one of the smaller ones.”

They’ve decided to split everything so they can try a larger assortment, which is almost routine by now. The shelves boast rows on rows of fresh buns, some glossy and smooth and others capped with a snowdrift of powdered sugar, assorted fillings adding to their variety. Jaehyun debates the pros and cons of a mango jelly one versus a double chocolate.

“You’re so serious about your bread,” comments Sicheng, coming up behind him. He reaches around Jaehyun’s back to grab a pair of tongs, then sweeps the two buns smoothly onto their already heavy tray. “We can try both.”

Jaehyun sends him a sheepish smile before heading to the front to check out. It’s especially nice out today, sunny and cool, so they snag a table for two on the narrow patio. Sicheng unwraps the mango one first, watching the sticky top quiver.

“It looks like you,” he says.

“The bread?”

“Yeah.” Sicheng holds it up next to Jaehyun’s face close enough that the plastic wrap crinkles directly into his ear. “Or you look like it. All round and smooth, you know.” He’s backlit because of the way they’re sitting, but his eyes twinkle with some inner luminescence, playful.

“I’ll take it,” Jaehyun decides, “but then I get to say you have a resemblance, too.” In order to demonstrate, he picks up the milky egg tart they grabbed at the last second and jiggles it in its cup.

“No, I don’t,” says Sicheng, folding his arms across his chest.

Jaehyun reaches in and squishes the meat of Sicheng’s cheek between his thumb and forefinger. Gently, of course, but still with a firm enough grip to stretch it out like dough. “Do too.”

Sicheng maintains his faux cross pose for a few more seconds before it presumably dawns on him how silly he looks sulking like a kid, with his cheek being pinched, no less. “Stop,” he snorts, batting Jaehyun’s hand away. “Fine, we’re both bread.”

“A man of reason,” says Jaehyun sagely. He reaches for the chocolate bun and unwraps the top, but Sicheng steals it out of his grasp and bites into it first. “Hey, I was about to eat that!”

“Go ahead, then.” Sicheng reseals the plastic and slides it out of reach, winding his arm as far back as it’ll possibly go so that Jaehyun can’t easily grab it back. “Take it.”

Jaehyun huffs but stands up anyway, prepared to dive at Sicheng across the table if need be. “I was pretty good at football in high school, you know. Turned down varsity for the basketball team. You don’t really want to be tackled.”

“Try me,” Sicheng challenges, then laughs delightedly when Jaehyun does without putting up much of a fight at all.

 

**ESPN: 2019 NBA FINALS!**

It’s like this whole trip down memory lane, recollections somehow blurred with a dreamy, distant lens despite only having happened a year ago. The air of the court is still a touch too stuffy for comfort. The smell of sweat undercut with lemony floor polish lingers. They’ve fixed the wonky light on the scoreboard, though, and when Jaehyun looks closely he can tell that the edges of the backboard have been repainted.

He breathes in, grounding himself. In spite of everything, or maybe because of everything, it feels good.

“Are you going to stand there in your feelings forever?” asks Ten, using his shirt collar to wipe the sweat from his temple. “Or maybe you forgot how to play.”

“Hey, Jaehyun was our star,” returns Johnny good-naturedly. “Besides, you already tapped out. I wouldn’t be talking from the bench.”

Jaehyun has to smile. The jibe at Ten isn’t real: the gym is only populated by the three of them at the moment, and Ten’s got classes to teach later that demand he conserves some energy. It’s the way Johnny still rises to his defense that pulls the dimples out.

“Yeah, whatever.” Ten stretches his arms behind his back so that the direction of his shoulders almost inverts, a pose likely unbearably painful for anyone else. “I’d take the bait if my joints weren’t all achy today. You know, whenever that happens, Jaehyun ends up embarrassing himself somehow. It’s like an omen.”

Johnny huffs a laugh. “Like old people and the weather? No way.”

“No, I swear!” Ten insists. “It’s this whole phenomenon, like wave propagation. Or El Niño.”

This is all rather new information to Jaehyun, but he’s not going to tempt fate by asking for evidence, even if Ten’s just fucking with him. He hasn’t been on this court in what feels like ages, and he’s missed it.

“You ready?” Johnny palms the ball almost lazily, but his expression belies his excitement. At least he’s not doing that annoyingly cool thing where he spins the basketball on the tip of his finger.

Jaehyun cracks his neck both ways. “Let’s go.” His hands reflexively shoot out to catch the ball when Johnny lobs it at him, a welcome-back gift in the skin of a courtesy. He dribbles low to the ground, starting to relax more and more with each steady thud. This is a rhythm ingrained in him.

Johnny briefly gets hold of the ball with a quick little side-step before Jaehyun steals it back, then runs it down the court, shoots and listens with satisfaction. Nothing but net. It feels important, somehow, that he still has it in him.

“Damn,” crows Johnny, jogging off to go retrieve it. He looks proud in spite of not having scored himself. “Still in top form, huh?”

Well, yeah, Jaehyun hopes so. Sharpens his focus as soon as Johnny starts dribbling again because he’s going to put up a fight. Everything in the periphery liquefies—the thick humidity, Ten watching from the stands, the entire world outside of the neat 94x50 box—and his tension goes with it. For a while, it’s just him and Johnny squeaking their shoes against the floor and playing by ear to the bounce of the basketball.

He’s down by a couple points for a while, but recovers eventually by spinning into another clean shot. It thrums in his head, his arms, his fingertips. He thinks he’ll go for a three when Ten’s nasally voice rings out after nearly a half hour of blessed silence. “Oh hey, what’s up, Sicheng?”

Theoretically, Jaehyun is too conscious of the flow of the game to turn and look from halfway down the court. Except, as it happens, he really isn’t. He swivels his head the slightest bit in the direction of the stands without thinking twice and then he’s facedown on the ground, having tripped first over the basketball and second over his own feet.

Johnny helps him up, all shock and brotherly concern. “You good, dude?”

Dizzy, Jaehyun opens his mouth to respond and is immediately overshadowed.

“I fucking knew it,” hoots Ten, weariness forgotten as he jumps to his feet. “The joint aches never lie!”

Jaehyun blinks until his vision stops swimming. Eventually, Ten and Johnny’s fractured silhouettes converge into whole people again, but Sicheng is nowhere in sight. Had Ten just called out his name to prove his premonition, assuming that Jaehyun would automatically shift his attention? (That would be doubly humiliating considering that, you know, he actually did.)

“Sorry, yeah, I’m still here,” says Ten suddenly into his phone. “What were you saying?”

A phone call. Jaehyun resists the urge to collapse back onto the ground, exposed for responding so instinctively to any mention of Sicheng that he’ll quite literally fall all over himself.

“Hey, it happens to the best of us,” Johnny assures him with a solid clap on the back.

“Right,” agrees Jaehyun unsteadily. He appreciates it, but that can’t be true. Not in this context, at least.

They put the incident behind them and the game concludes with a victory for Jaehyun, 15-14 thanks to sinking the big, beautiful three he’d been aiming for earlier. He also heavily suspects that Johnny went easier after watching him eat shit, but he’s not one to contest a gesture of consideration, not when it’s something small like this. Besides, he’s sort of preoccupied.

With Ten already gone, Jaehyun tells Johnny he’ll see him in the studio and pokes at his purpling kneecaps on the walk back to his dorm. Seokmin’s at choir rehearsal, which means that he’s alone in their room with no one to distract him from himself. It hardly takes a minute before he inevitably circles back to Sicheng.

There are a few thoughts that float to the top of his mind straight away. In order, they are these: he’s been spending a lot of time alone with Sicheng lately. If he distances himself from the situation a bit, said outings closely resemble dates. In fact, they could be dates if he and Sicheng liked each other like that.

A pause, while Jaehyun works back through this sequence and sees, finally, that the other shoe dropped a long time ago. He _does_ like Sicheng like that, his candyfloss hair and low voice and how he’s taken to smiling at Jaehyun so often that it’s as if he can’t quite help it. He likes Sicheng’s unembellished confidence, palpable without needing to prove itself.

He also, he realizes with an impending sense of doom, has no idea where to go from here. It’s not as if the two of them have ever talked about anything remotely close to this. He’s fairly sure Sicheng’s not with anyone at the moment, seeing as a significant other wouldn’t likely have been onboard with all their recent not-dates, but that doesn’t mean Sicheng would date him. Jesus Christ, is he going to ask Sicheng to date him?

Jaehyun fumbles with his phone, locating Chungha’s heart emoji-laden contact name—she’d put that in herself—only to have his call go straight to voicemail. Right, it’s Monday. She’s live in a few minutes, and if he heads over to talk to her in person afterwards, he’ll have an audience in the shape of Taeyong and Joy and maybe even Yuta (who took a women’s studies class once and now frequently invites himself over to listen to her deconstruct the patriarchal institution, interspersed with breaks of throwback pop music). Jaehyun doesn’t especially trust anyone else enough to discuss this, either.

So, he trudges to the shower and spends the better part of an hour just thinking, despite the hot water already having been used up, then flops across his bed to crack open his laptop. If fate insists on throwing him curveballs like this the whole semester, he’s going to redirect that energy into being the most productive statistics student the world has ever known.

 

**BBC NEWS**

“Have you guys been checking our ratings lately?”

Jaehyun lifts his head off folded arms, forehead no doubt lined with the imprints of his sweatshirt seams, to look up at Doyoung blearily. “No, sorry.” Across the table, Johnny mumbles something similar.

“Well, I have,” says Doyoung. Jaehyun thinks it’s pride that tints his voice when he pulls up a magnificently color-coded spreadsheet. “These are rough estimates based on peak viewership over the course of the hour, but the trend has been looking better the past month than it has all year. We’re selling.”

“What are we selling, exactly?” Taeyong has paused the new track he’s working on for their outro to listen in.

“Nothing especially concrete,” answers Doyoung, oddly secretive.

Johnny rubs the exhaustion from his eyes long enough to fix him with a puzzled stare. “Okay, then what’s that last column on your screen?”

Doyoung carefully prepares his best innocent face. “Those would be Twitter impressions from our promotional account. Your thirst trap selfies, in particular.”

“You can’t mean the ones that I send as snap streaks,” says Johnny, all naive disbelief, and groans when Doyoung just smiles at them.

“Almost triple the engagement. The sweaty ones in your jersey really make it.”

Taeyong emits a peal of gleeful laughter. “I thought you hated ‘transparently greedy business strategies’ like this. The display name for your personal Twitter account was _local sluts for socialism_ for almost a year.”

“And it still is, in my heart,” says Doyoung gloomily. “But this nation’s Gini coefficient is through the roof, and one can only ignore the demands of reality for so long. We owe our current viewership boost to the expansion plan I drew up for my marketing module. It’s thirty percent of my final grade, so you’d best believe Johnny’s ponytail selfies are putting in overtime.”

Johnny whistles. “You really do either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

“On that uplifting note, I think I’ll head out,” says Taeyong, smothering another giggle. He packs up his stuff, ruffles his hair, shrugs on an oversized jacket. “See you guys next week.”

Doyoung and his meticulously organized spreadsheets go next, and then it’s just Johnny and Jaehyun trying not to trip over the camera stand while they shuffle around turning off the lights. They’d collectively stifled so many yawns during broadcast that a 20-minute power nap seemed compulsory, but Jaehyun’s eyelids still sag. This week has been hard on everyone. By the time he makes it downstairs, he’s already so sleepy again that he almost walks straight into Sicheng.

“Whoa,” Sicheng laughs, holding him back by the shoulders. “Are we reenacting how we met?”

Even in his semi-stupor, Jaehyun’s ears automatically warm. “Sorry. Just a little bit”—his voice breaks into what must be the thirtieth yawn of the night—“tired, is all.”

“You look like you’re about collapse,” observes Sicheng, brows furrowed. “Go home.”

“But—”

“Doesn’t matter what your argument was going to be. You need rest.” Distantly, Jaehyun registers that one of Sicheng’s hands has migrated from his shoulder to his forehead, checking to see if he’s running warm. He is released with a click of the tongue when apparently deemed passable.

“But I wanted to see you today,” Jaehyun protests. He feels the flush from his ears stretch across his cheeks and neck as soon as the words are out, exhaustion slicking up his tongue so much that even these guarded, candid thoughts can escape.

Sicheng’s smile is amused but kind. His bangs are growing out too long lately, nearly obscuring the shape of his eyes but never all the stars in them. “I’m free tomorrow morning if you still want to see me then.”

“I’d like that,” says Jaehyun, grateful. “I’ll text you.” And he does, as soon as he gets back to his dorm, even though he wants desperately to collapse face-first into his pillow. Sleep’s sticky fingers are valiantly held at bay until he gets a reply. Only then, with concrete plans and a blurry portrait of Sicheng behind his lids, does he drift off.

He wakes with barely enough time to shower away yesterday's grime before he has to run. The chill of the morning bites after him; there’s a cold front moving in, and the thick hoodie he’s layered on top of his sweater seems just barely enough. When he gets to the intramural fields and sees Sicheng, however, he immediately sheds the outermost layer and offers it outwards.

“There’s no way you’re not freezing,” he says.

“Nah, I feel fine. All that stretching warms me up.” To underscore his point, Sicheng casually extends his arms behind him and arches his back in a move that would put even Ten to shame. It’s impressive, but it does nothing to sway Jaehyun’s attention from the fact that he’s only wearing a thin shirt with plenty of open real estate at the neck. The hem also slides up a good couple of inches, inviting.

Jaehyun presses the bundled-up hoodie into Sicheng’s hands. “Take it,” he insists, less out of an obligation to repay Sicheng’s simple kindness from last night and more because he feels like he has license to be a little pushier now.

“You’re dramatic,” says Sicheng, rolling his eyes, but he accepts the proffered garment and tugs it down over his head. It musses up his hair and sits bulky on his slight frame. He looks good in it, though, like he does in everything, and Jaehyun’s heart gives a funny lurch at seeing Sicheng in his clothes. “Actually, I brought coffee since I know this is an early time to ask to meet. We can call it a trade.” He leads Jaehyun to the base of the old, knotted oak whose branches splay over the left half of the field, where a to-go tray holds twin cups. “They’re probably not really hot anymore, though. Sorry about that.”

Jaehyun brushes off the apology, quietly touched at the gesture. “You wanna sit?”

“Beneath the tree?” Sicheng bends to pick up both drinks and passes one to Jaehyun. It’s definitely warm, for the record. “There are benches not too far away.”

“I don’t know, I think it looks kind of peaceful.”

Sicheng contemplates it. “Okay, sure.”

The gnarled roots protruding from the earth make it difficult to sit properly side by side, so they end up like this: Jaehyun tucked into the wide prong of two roots, Sicheng pressed into him on the right. As stupid as it sounds, this proximity already has Jaehyun feeling a little skittish, so he almost drops his coffee when Sicheng declares it too uncomfortable and settles directly in between Jaehyun’s legs.

“Is this alright?” asks Sicheng, turning halfway around to look at him. The neck of Jaehyun’s hoodie swallows him, bunching up beneath his elf ear. He seems perfectly content, as sure of himself as ever. Fingers wrap around the upper curve of Jaehyun’s thigh, steadying.

Jaehyun swallows, feeling the warmth of each finger through his jeans like a brand. “Yeah.”

There’s no response from Sicheng at first, just the dry rasp of fabric on fabric while he shifts around to find the ideal position. As it happens, this involves his head reclined against Jaehyun’s abdomen, one elbow propped up on the place below Jaehyun’s left hip so he can easily sip at his drink. There’s a milky drop of coffee that rests on the swell of Sicheng’s bottom lip, right in the center, and Jaehyun tracks the movement of Sicheng’s tongue when he licks it off.

The soft nearness of him is overwhelming at first, so immediate that Jaehyun’s sort of afraid to move, then recedes, low tide, as Sicheng turns his face up to talk aimlessly about how his week has gone. Nerves transform into something tranquil; the ripples on the lake whisper into nothing.

“And then Ten canceled on me to go ‘feed his cat,”’ concludes Sicheng, doing lazy air quotes. “I know he doesn’t have a cat. Ten is terrified of pussy.”

Jaehyun’s laugh is so sudden and loud that it startles Sicheng for a moment before he grins, relaxing into Jaehyun further while the rest of the morning unfurls before them.

 

**DISCOVERY CHANNEL**

Sunday finds Jaehyun in Sicheng’s company again, except this time they’ve brought along a third wheel. Actually, that’s hardly accurate. This companion of theirs is by and large the star of the show, and they’re just glorified bodyguards.

“Evan, no,” scolds Sicheng, lifting the puppy off the ground after he ventures too close to the swingset and barely avoids getting punted into the horizon by an unconcerned kid. “Here, Jaehyun, you hold onto him for a sec.”

Jaehyun opens his arms, receiving Evan’s relentlessly squirming frame like you would a baby who’s thrown up on you. Evan likes Sicheng like he does nobody else—which, in all fairness, Jaehyun supposes he does too, but you don’t see him actively seeking out certain death every five minutes. He wasn’t supposed to be puppysitting today to begin with, but faceless owner Jihoon had some kind of family emergency and forwarded the responsibility to Joshua, who’s indisposed with something nasty of the upper respiratory kind, so he passed the baton again to Seokmin, who’s pulling an extra shift at the restaurant today. Seokmin, for his part, had not complained, but he did earnestly tell Jaehyun that he was looking extra handsome six separate times this morning before Jaehyun sighed, resolve crumbling, and took Evan himself. It’s like the world’s worst game of telephone, except with a dog who has a 90s anime for a namesake.

It did, however, land him here with Sicheng after a pleading SOS text, so he supposes he has something to thank Evan for.

“He doesn’t listen to me,” Jaehyun mourns, shifting the puppy back and forth uselessly. “You’re the only one he respects.”

Sicheng huffs, playing exasperated when Jaehyun knows perfectly well that Evan’s love is fully requited. If Sicheng really hadn’t wanted to come help out today, he would have said as much, and in no uncertain terms. “Alright, give him back. I’ll set him down over there by the lady with the labradoodle. Maybe he’ll make friends.”

Jaehyun hands Evan over, lamenting the fact that Jihoon always conveniently forgets to provide a leash. They’ll just have to maintain a close watch in anticipation of him running away again.

“How goes the radio show?” asks Sicheng once he’s returned. Evan chases his tail excitedly in a pile of mulch, satisfied with his relocation for the time being.

“Pretty well, lately. Taeyong finished up the track he was playing around with for our new outro, and Johnny found this new album that he’s been beating to death on air. He’s big into supporting local acts.”

Sicheng hums. “I heard. I really like the song with the guitar in the beginning that goes like this…” He trails off, imitating the zigzagging, melancholy melody and strumming the air. That one is Jaehyun’s favorite, too.

“You still listen?”

There’s a distressed metallic squeak behind them as the boy on the swings jumps off the seat, then runs to the park’s edge, where his mother crossly calls his name again and again. Some childish impulse prompts Jaehyun to claim the empty seat despite his legs being way too long. The swingset groans at his weight.

“Every week,” Sicheng tells him, coming over to join him in the adjacent swing. “Thursdays at 9 on the dot.”

Jaehyun turns so that Sicheng won’t see his wide, pleased smile, then realizes it’s pointless a moment later when Sicheng pokes a fingertip into one of his conspicuous dimples.

“You’re good at it.”

“I hope so.” Jaehyun rubs at the back of his neck. “The truth is that Johnny needed a co-host at the end of last year and I just got lucky.”

“I don’t know,” says Sicheng, kicking at the dirt absently. “It’s not like I listen to anybody else’s shows, but I think it was more than luck.”

Just beyond the box containing the swingset, Evan tires of pursuing his own ass in circles and noses at the labradoodle, who sniffs him back. For a split second, Jaehyun entertains the absurd thought of him and Sicheng properly raising a dog together. Puppy parents. He shakes the dream out of mind. “Well,” he says, “I guess you’d know better than anyone about real starpower.”

Another pained groan from the iron bar holding them both up as Sicheng twists around the chains of his swing. “What do you mean?”

“You know, your dancing. The competition last year? It must’ve been huge.”

“It was,” agrees Sicheng thoughtfully. “At the time. Made my parents so happy.”

Jaehyun sighs, imagining it.

“That’s why I started doing all that stuff, you know? They spent so much time carting my older sister back and forth from guzheng lessons and me to my practices.” Now, Sicheng is looking not at Jaehyun, but somewhere into the shadowed trees. Maybe even further. “Having a talent for it was nice, but I’m more thankful that it’s something I ended up actually liking.”

“Well, yeah. That’s important, too,” says Jaehyun, then coughs to clear his throat when his voice comes out unusually small.

“Right? So I decided to run with it.”

Jaehyun notices Evan getting bored again and calls out to him, patting his thighs. He’s not even mad when Evan runs straight to Sicheng instead, especially because the smile that immediately graces Sicheng’s mouth is so pretty. “You mean the teaching job?”

“Yeah, my parents aren’t fond,” says Sicheng, and laughs as Evan props himself up on his hind legs, front paws scrabbling against Sicheng’s shins. “Since it has no bearing on my own progress. They think majoring in applied math is a waste of time, too, because I want to go into academia. I love it, though, and I’m on scholarship, so it works out.”

Evan whines, seeking more attention than just fingers to gnaw on. He shakes his head petulantly, collar jingling and ears flapping everywhere, until Sicheng gives in and scoops him into his lap. Jaehyun doesn’t notice very much of this, though, because he feels almost like the breath’s been stolen out of his chest.

“So the studio, and the field you want to end up in and everything. You’re doing it all for yourself?”

Sicheng and Evan both tilt their heads to look at him in the same second, and it’s uncanny. They’re even wearing the same open, curious expression. “I mean, basically. If I don’t like where I am, then I’m the only one to blame.”

This is, hands down, the most that Sicheng has ever revealed about his life beyond campus or his internal motivations. He normally leans towards discussing lighter topics—with Jaehyun, that is. And it’s only now, as Sicheng cups Evan’s little face inches apart from his own, that Jaehyun considers the other side of the coin.

Jaehyun hasn’t ever divulged anything truly personal about himself; he makes it a point to lacquer his words with vague optimism; he wants to be good enough for everybody else, all the time, in every respect. All of these statements are true. None are things he wants to admit.

“Do you want to try holding him again? Put your hand here… no, right there, he likes that,” Sicheng directs, cutting clean through the moment of introspection. “Scratch behind his ears.” Evan, miraculously, doesn’t squirm when Jaehyun does as instructed. He blinks twice, then spreads as effortlessly as a pat of melting butter across the plane of Jaehyun’s lap.

“You’re so good with him,” marvels Jaehyun. “You even got him to put up with me.”

“He needed time to warm up, but he’s coming around,” says Sicheng. In the late afternoon sun, his skin is honey, profile sharp.

Honesty with yourself, Jaehyun decides, is the first step. And in this respect, he thinks he’s starting to come around, too.

 

**BRAVO**

“So,” says Chungha, dragging out the word at least three times as long as required. “Any spring break plans?”

“Nope,” says Johnny too quickly. He scoots back his chair so fast that it bangs into the wall behind him, adding a fresh dent to the already expansive collection contained in the paint. “I’m totally free. Like, any day.”

“That’s great,” says Chungha politely and takes a sizeable step back. “What about you, Jeffrey?”

Jaehyun plucks a pen off the table and starts twirling it one-handed, building up a steady pace. “I mean, it’s still weeks away. I haven’t thought about it all that much.”

“It’d help tons if you started thinking about it right now,” she offers. “What’s Sicheng going to be doing?” Her tone remains level, innocent, but her eyes flash with something more mischievous than can be owed to glittery makeup.

“I haven’t asked—”

Chungha crosses her arms with an air of disappointment and no surprise. “You do all this talking live on broadcast, but you still don’t know how to communicate.”

“He’s not my _boyfriend_ ,” retaliates Jaehyun, dropping the pen. “I guess I could find out if he has plans, but if he doesn’t, it’s not an invite for me to come over and keep him company.”

“I don’t have plans at all,” emphasizes Johnny, somewhere in the periphery. “You look gorgeous today, Chungha.”

“Thanks, John,” she says without so much as blinking. “Duh, it’s not an invite. You don’t invite yourself. You _ask_ in order to hold the door open, and you wait for confirmation. Also, this is definitely not just about how you’re spending your break, so let’s release the euphemism.”

Jaehyun is quiet for a moment. “It’s not, like, a masculine pride thing, before you try to analyze me. It’s the opposite, kind of.”

Chungha tsks and regards him from beneath her lashes. Then, she’s leaning over to wrap one arm tightly around his shoulders, spearmint gum on her breath. “I know,” she says, softly enough that Johnny can’t hear. “But being afraid isn’t a masculine thing, it’s an everyone thing. Working up the courage is the hardest part.” When she pulls away, her expression has already reset into something fluidly casual, as if she’d only leaned in to pluck some fluff off his collar.

Something in Jaehyun’s chest grows wings. “Thanks.”

“It’s whatever,” she tells him, but the wink she gives is conspiratorial. “Want some lip gloss? This one’s subtler than the one I put on you last time. Still super pretty, though.”

The most irritating part of Jaehyun’s brain chooses now to remind him of the time Sicheng had complimented his lip gloss, back when they’d just started talking. “Okay.”

Chungha grins broadly and dabs some across his mouth, then leans back to admire her work. “Perfect. Go get him.” A final, encouraging nudge at his shoulder and she’s out the door.

“I hope you know how lucky you are,” Johnny informs him. The massive, cartoonish hearts have yet to leave his eyes. “You go ahead, I’ll clean up.”

“You don’t have to,” Jaehyun tries, but Johnny shakes his head.

“Doyoung and Taeyong already took care of most of it. Besides, you’ll want a little privacy, yeah?”

So Jaehyun takes the elevator down, listening to it rattle like his heart in his ribcage. He’s grateful. He is.

“Hey,” says Sicheng when he arrives downstairs, leaning against the locked office door even though anyone who works behind it is long gone. The lighting overhead has started to go out, leaving only a few weak bulbs and the glare of his phone to illuminate his face. “Someone should do something about these lights.”

Jaehyun breathes out on a smile. “I’ll put in a word. It’s sort of hard to see each other now, though.”

“Yeah, and I’m not really feeling late dinner, either. We could go back to your place? Or mine, doesn’t matter.”

“Seokmin,” begins Jaehyun, then starts again when the words clump up in his throat. “My roommate tends to study late, and I wouldn’t want to bother him. Is yours okay?”

One of the lights directly above Sicheng’s head flickers a few times, warning them it’s close to giving out. “Sure.”

Sicheng’s building is hardly a five minute walk from Jaehyun’s own. He leads Jaehyun up, explaining briefly that he doesn’t see too much of his own roommate, Minghao. Jaehyun studies the room as the door creaks open. It’s unexpectedly clean, everything in its place, but the cramped size means that they’ve both got to squeeze onto Sicheng’s bed. He shifts so that his left thigh lines up with Sicheng’s right one, mismatched puzzle pieces.

They sit in silence for a moment.

“I was wondering about something,” Jaehyun begins. “You said you don’t see Minghao often, but isn’t he in lit mag? You should see him every week, at least, because of the interview you guys are working on.”

Sicheng doesn’t raise his head straight away, fiddling with the seam of his jeans. “You wanna know a secret? It’s not actually a secret, but.”

”Yeah, go ahead.”

“That interview got published a month and a half ago.”

Jaehyun’s hand drifts over cautiously, folding on top of Sicheng’s. They’ve come far enough that he’s finally developing an eye for the subtext. “Really? You never did link me.”

“I didn’t link anyone else, either,” Sicheng promises. He’s looking at Jaehyun intently, his fingers perfectly still beneath Jaehyun's own, and every miniscule point of contact between them feels impossibly hot.

“Well, I hope you still wouldn’t mind letting me see it.” Jaehyun takes a breath, collecting himself. “I like learning more about the things that make you happy. I like watching Joshua’s friend’s dog with you so that he doesn’t accidentally eat pot and die or something. I like _you_ a lot. For a long time, I was kind of waiting on myself to figure it out, but if I’m telling the truth, I think I’ve known since the very beginning.”

The longest minute of Jaehyun’s life follows, unnervingly quiet and viciously nerve-wracking. He’s not quite brave enough to look over, so he defaults to training his eyes on the grayish carpet.

“Are you sure?” Sicheng asks, prompting Jaehyun to meet his gaze again. He really does have the prettiest mouth that Jaehyun’s ever seen, and it’s okay that he wants this. He’s been wanting it.

“For once,” answers Jaehyun, reaching out, “I definitely am.”

Sicheng’s eyes gleam and then he’s leaning in, one arm winding around the back of Jaehyun’s neck and the other sliding up to cup his face, kissing him like it’s all he’s thought about for ages. Jaehyun contains a gasp and pulls him closer. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but it feels a hundred times more liberating than he’d imagined.

When they come up for air, Sicheng’s lips are smeared with a fine golden glitter at which he prods tentatively, admiring the iridescence on the pad of his finger. “You took the gloss thing to heart,” he says, inching back into Jaehyun’s space. Both hands grasp at firm deltoids for balance while he repositions his legs, rising onto his knees so that Jaehyun’s hips are bracketed between them.

Jaehyun groans and reels him all the way back in, this time taking it upon himself to connect their lips. Sicheng clings on, pushes so insistently that he topples them over and leaves Jaehyun momentarily breathless on his back. Chest heaving, he reaches up to thumb at the corner of Sicheng’s mouth and studies the shimmer against his own skin. “It looks better on you,” he decides hoarsely, and whatever he planned to say next is swallowed by another feverish, sticky kiss.

Once they part again, Sicheng buries his face in the side of Jaehyun’s neck, slick lips to the spot right below his ear. The room compresses, spins, bleeds out air until they’re both gasping and Jaehyun is squeezing Sicheng’s ass.

The lips withdraw. For a moment, even in this silky, hazy cloud, Jaehyun doubts. Then the hem of his sweater is being pushed up, irreverent, and the lips announce their return by making their way down his bare torso, lower and lower until Sicheng’s palming him with clear intent.

“Are you… sure,” Jaehyun manages to bite out, a shaky, crumbling parallel to Sicheng from earlier.

“Positive,” says Sicheng, and yanks Jaehyun’s waistband down to mouth at his hip bone.

Jaehyun’s head falls back with a heavy thud, but it doesn’t stay there for long. Within minutes, he’s arching up, back drawn bowstring tense, and eventually comes to the sight of Sicheng making unhurried eye contact, daring him with full lips wrapped around Jaehyun’s dick. (He spits, thank God. Jaehyun’s soul might have left his body completely if he didn’t.)

When the ceiling has finally stopped spinning, he peels himself off the mattress and jerks Sicheng off in return, chin hooked lazily over his shoulder. There’s a bite mark in Jaehyun’s sleeve where he’d clamped down to muffle potentially embarrassing moans (ineffective) and a reddish splotch next to his navel (he kind of likes that, actually). The presence of a tissue box in arm’s reach handles the most immediate cleanup, but both of them still look like they’ve walked through a low category hurricane.

By no stretch of the imagination is the bed wide enough for them to lay next to each other comfortably. Jaehyun, all jelly spine and fog on the brain, flops onto it facedown and is nearly shoved into the wall when Sicheng attempts to stretch out his legs. “This isn’t working,” he observes with a mouthful of pillowcase.

“You could take Minghao’s,” suggests Sicheng dryly.

“No way.” Jaehyun laughs, straightening up. “He’d never forgive me.” He tosses Sicheng’s pillow to the foot of the bed and scoots up, making room along the edge of the mattress. Sicheng obligingly settles in with his head drooping against Jaehyun’s shoulder. It’s not ideal, but it’s enough.

“The magazine profile wasn’t even that interesting,” adds Sicheng after a moment. “If you want, you can come watch me dance instead. I have a performance soon.”

“Yeah? Tell me when and I’ll be there.”

Sicheng turns his head so that his lashes skim the ticklish place right above Jaehyun’s clavicle. “A couple more lessons at the studio and you can dance up there with me next time.”

Jaehyun finds the dip of Sicheng’s waist with one hand and props the other one behind him in the rumpled, scratchy sheets. His eyes flutter closed when he leans back, thinking about the broadcasting office, next week’s show, the weeks after that. About maybe continuing the program next year in Johnny’s absence like he’s been unsubtly hinting to Jaehyun every time they’ve seen each other lately. “I think I’ll stick to just talking for now,” he says.

But then again, these plans that he has for the moment are still malleable, barely hatched. He supposes there’s plenty of time for the rest.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/cultofjaemin) (my main) and [here](https://twitter.com/cultofwinwin) (to talk about fic things) or drop me a [cc](https://curiouscat.me/daelos) ♡


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